Opinion Contributor

Criticism of Hagel out of proportion

In saying his goodbyes at the White House this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta joked that he was going home to his California walnut farm after 50 years in public life to deal with “a different set of nuts.”

It was classic Panetta: never able to resist a good line. But also an apt introduction to the heartbreaking, loopy debate over his would-be successor: Vietnam veteran and former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.

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Heartbreaking in the sense that old Hagel colleagues in the Senate can seem so blinded by their sense of injury that they would throw him to the wolves to get back at President Barack Obama. Loopy because Washington’s politics — and its press — appear to have lost all sense of context from which to judge the man before them.

Hagel has been loudly taken to task for speaking of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as a “Jewish lobby.” But former Connecticut Rep. Sam Gejdenson — Jewish, born in post-war Germany in a displaced persons camp and the child of Holocaust survivors — could be far blunter about AIPAC as the top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee a decade ago.

And wasn’t it just weeks ago that the Senate was tripping over itself to praise the grace and courage of Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, who died before Christmas? Does anyone seriously think Inouye, a decorated veteran of World War II and strong Israel supporter, would not be supporting Hagel, the first enlisted-man veteran given a shot to lead the Defense Department?

This reporter brings his own past to this debate as an infantry medic in 1969 in Vietnam. In more than 30 years covering Congress, it’s been impossible to totally separate that experience from dealing with those few members who were also in combat: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) or the late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), for example. Hagel falls into the same mix: never a social friend but someone who extended himself to provide context for stories.

In this same context, no one is more important to the Hagel debate now than McCain, Obama’s old adversary and often bitter critic.

In life, the Republican would castigate Inouye as a vaguely corrupt baron of appropriations. In death, he warmly praised the Democrat. Now, McCain faces a similar choice regarding Hagel, who was once like a younger brother when the Nebraskan first came to the Senate in the mid-90s.

With offices across the hall in the Senate’s old Russell building, the two Republicans could seem inseparable: McCain, a Navy flier in Vietnam and decorated POW from an old military family, and Hagel, born to less privilege and the Army infantryman from the same war.

That relationship wore thin with time — as relationships can. Differences over campaign finance reform may have been part of it. The divide over Iraq policy added its own punctuation point but can be overstated.

Readers' Comments (24)

“Hagel is not a pacifist and certainly not the dove that his critics have claimed he is. He remains firmly within the foreign policy mainstream in Washington, and has supported past wars that I have opposed,” Preble writes. “But his general inclination, hardened after the debacle of Iraq, is to avoid foreign crusades, and to resist pressure to send U.S. troops into harm’s way in pursuit of unclear objectives that do not advance U.S. interests. That is a mindset that the neoconservatives cannot abide.”

Penobscot likens Iran to Nazi Germany but actually Israel is the most Nazi-like. Iran has not invaded another country since the late 18th century whereas Israel invades often, bombing to death thousands of innocent civilians in Lebanon and Gaza. Iran occupies no one whereas Israel occupies Palestine and parts of Syria and Lebanon in violation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions. There is no proof Iran has even decided it wants a nuclear bomb (but Israel murders Iranian scientists anyway) whereas Israel has hundreds, never under UN inspection. Israel even jailed in solitary confinement the Israeli technician Mordechai Vanunu who blew the whistle on Israel's covert nuclear weapons program.

Iran is no threat to us and would not be a threat to Israel if Israel would end its brutal illegal occupations and persecutions. The Arab Peace Plan, endorsed by the entire Arab/Muslim world including Iran, offers peace and normalization of relations with Israel if Israel withdraws from illegally occupied land. Israel refuses, preferring to expand its apartheid Jew-only settlements on stolen Arab land.

Israel Lobby neocons lied us into the bankrupting unnecessary Iraq War and now they want to lie us into an even worse war against Iran. This is why these warmongers hate Hagel. He is not an Israel-firster. He puts America first. Israel Lobby neocons hate that attitude. They are so used to America being its patsy and fighting its wars.

The 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said his hatred of us is due to our bias towards Israel. (See The 9/11 Commission Report page 147) Since then the neocons used 9/11 as an excuse and turned us into an Israeli clone as we also invaded and occupied Muslim lands. The Israel-firsters are happy to see America, like Israel, hit with revenge terror attacks as a result, and they urge us on to even more invasions. It's time we bring the troops home and dissociate ourselves from this criminal state.

Here is reality....You don't win wars with big, expensive toys......You win wars with SMART people......The neo-cons spent more on toys and had some Generals who were too stupid to count to 50 without help.........Remember Paul Wolfowitz " Oil revenues will pay for the Iraq war", Bill Kristol" the war in Iraq will be over in a few months".....Here's the deal.........Neither one of these mental giants ever served...and Rumsfeld did serve but well before advanced weapon systems.........

Now you can worry about Iran and sweat bullets over the next big crisis in the Middle East....Or, this nation can move into the future of Asia and let the Middle East deal with it's own mess......That is why Republicans are in a raw panic.....The era of neo-cons and CONSTANT war (and everlasting defense contracts and lobbying money) is going to come to an end............Hagel is not going to support THEIR income infrastructure--pure and simple.........Tough times ahead for the dishonest....War may be hell-but peace doesn't bring them a profit......Real patriots....taking down a decorated VETERAN so they can continue to be on the take.......Think about what that really says about who we are........

Upside 22, We do not occupy Canada. If we did, perhaps they might lob rockets at us. Israel illegally occupies Palestine and parts of Syria and Lebanon. When a country is occupied, resistance groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah form. If we were under say Nazi occupation, we would have resistance groups too I would hope.

Like Iraq, Iran is no threat to us: this is just another myth perpetrated by the warmongering Israel Lobby neocons. Israel could easily make peace with Iran if Israelis weren't so greedy for stolen land.

Many countries around the world do not recognize Israel because of its sadistic occupations and other atrocities. Since we subsidize Israel's criminal behavior we are also subject to attack as on 9/11. Fighting all Israel's wars diverts money which should be spent at home. Neocons like McCain object to spending money on health care for Americans, but Israel, whom we bankroll, has socialized medicine with health care for all. Israel's citizens of course have a longer life expectancy than do ours. Thanks neocons!

Senator Hagel had the audacity to state that he was a US senator not an Israeli senator. Paul Findley, who represented Illinois in Congress for 22 years, wrote in his book They Dare To Speak Out, "Capitol Hill is truly Israeli-occupied territory." No wonder approval of Congress is lower than that of cockroaches and root canals.

I think a lot of neo conservatives are missing the obvious historical precedent of the past 50 or so years: Israel is the premiere military force in the middle east. Israel won the 6 Day War and they won the Yom Kippur War and that pretty much signaled the end of any hope the Arab world had of taking Israel. Hence, terrorism became the only way the Arabs could do any damage. And while it may be cause terrible and traumatic events, terrorism can never take over a nation. It is the chosen fighting method of the weak and conquered.

Israel reigns supreme in the region and its competitors know it. Heck, the whole world knows it. So, let's stop treating Israel like it is some weak and disabled child that needs our help against all the mean Arab bullies at school. If the Middle East was a high school, Israel is the badazz LInebacker who is captain of the team, rules the hallways, and dates the hottest girl. The Arabs? They are the nerdy kids who wish they could be him. (And I would know about that kind of envy, because I'm a nerdy kid!)

The USA will always be the #1 ally of Israel and her truest friend. But we have to differentiate between being a friend of Israel and being a friend of the Likud party. Just like we differentiate between the Neo Cons and the United States of America.